Sleep
by odalys-ortiz
Summary: Takes place after Dead Space 2. Trying to start a new life, Isaac finds that he is still haunted with nightmares of Nicole. Can he find solace in someone who shares the same distress? Isaac/Ellie pairing. One-shot. Enjoy


Disclaimer: None of the characters belong to me. They are the property of Visceral Games and EA. Enjoy^^

Sleep

The nightmares still came to him every night. Despite putting an end to the dementia that he was suffering from, Isaac just couldn't get over thinking that the apparition was right after all. When the Sprawl had been destroyed, Isaac and Ellie took refuge in a space station a few planets away that had no association with the Unitologist or Earthgov. Even though they were fugitives, they managed to take shelter here and actually have a sort of 'home' where they could maybe relax and recharge.

Surprisingly, Ellie had been the one to ask if they can share the place together. Isaac had thought that she had still harbored ill feelings towards him over what happened to her eye. The place had enough room for two so the arrangements were agreed to. They didn't have a lot of things with them when they arrived. How could they when they were trying to prevent a huge disaster from happening and fight demonic monsters along the way. They had been staying at the station for six months now and everything was going great.

The place that they had been staying in was designed to allow the benefit of privacy so they were able to have their fun from time to time without disturbing other people. No one had ever asked questions about what happened to them when Isaac and Ellie finally made it to the station. Some people that they met along the way were also part of the CEC that were assigned to the orbiting station. It was a relief to them both to have some sort of secure safety net. Thanks to a few inside connections because of their reputations, Isaac and Ellie tried to make a life for themselves here, far away from anything even remotely involving the 'incidents'.

Ellie had gotten the surgery to get a prosthetic eye and now she was able to see better then she ever had before. This was financially covered by the company so that she could begin her work as a pilot delivering supplies, like food and medical, to the different sectors of the station. Isaac, having the reputation of the can do engineer, of course was given a job as well to monitor the different functioning inners of the multiple machines to make sure that everything was running smoothly.

The jobs allowed them to have something to do and earn a paycheck while they were at it. When the day was over, Isaac and Ellie spent time together in the apartment doing different things like watching a movie or just talking about how their day was. It was all going great so why did the nightmares start again? Was it the guilt that he still secretly felt over Nicole? This thought had been eating away at him since the apparition brought it to light that he, in truth, had actually encouraged Nicole to board the Ishimura and take the job before it was decommissioned.

It seemed like Ellie didn't notice anything which he was thankful for. The last thing he wanted was worry her with his petty little problems. It was strange though. Whenever he woke up from the nightmare, she wasn't there. He was concerned that he was disturbing her sleep and thought about moving to another apartment to solve things, but she had never complained to him once about it. The nightmares always started the same. When he was done doing his daily maintenance work, he clocked out and headed home. He and Ellie had slightly different work schedules so he was always the first one home.

It had become a routine for him to just breathe when he walked through that door for having an uneventful day. He would never complain about those types of workdays ever again. He got out of his uniform Rig and took a nice long shower to wash the grime from the day. It still hurt when the water would pass over the patches of his skin that have been marked and discolored by the scratches and teeth marks that his Rig's armor couldn't protect. It would always be a reminder of everything that had happened. After he was done cleaning up, he would dry up and get dress. The meals that he ate were always huge, but that was never a problem since he and Ellie bought their own food to prevent any future argument.

After watching some random things on the holovid, he would pull the covers over him to rest. After a short time, he could feel himself floating in a black void of nothingness. The only voice being the sweet voice singing those lyrics that haunt him still. Soon after, a cold, blurry environment began to wrap around his body, like a suffocating sheet. When the dull, warped marks became clearer, he knew where he was. Isaac could never forget the smell of blood that stained the metallic walls of the ship. He was standing in the hallway that led to the medical deck of the Ishimura. He remembered these steps well. He was like a ghost that didn't know why he was still on the Earth. The atmosphere was different from what he had experience during his visit at first.

This nightmare was guaranteed to play out the same way.

As Isaac took steps through the hall, it felt as though he was being hampered by invisible lead weights. It was odd though to observe the lives of others on this ship. The only living crew members that Isaac had seen were lost to sanity. If they were not dead to the necromorphs, they died by their own hand or the hand of their friend. The people that Isaac saw seemed to be living their lives like normal, but they never noticed him. The hallway seemed too cold, yet it wanted him to travel further down and see all there was to see.

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see a man and woman, no older then 30, laughing it up and discussing plans for the evening. Looking closer, he saw the names Temple and Cross on their uniforms. He remembered the couple through the countless audio logs that they left behind trying to find each other. Another gentleman was cleaning up after a recent procedure that had taken place while chatting with a co-worker to pass the time. They were not the people that Isaac cared about at the moment.

The person that he always looked for was behind the locked door which belonged to the Senior Medical Director of the ship. His footsteps took him to this door every time he saw it for the last few nights. His palm pressed against the glowing panel which granted him access and opened the door. Stepping through the doorway, Isaac looked at the organized room. Everything had a place where it could be easily found. Only one person was this structured. Isaac's eyes directed themselves to the occupied chair that was examining something on the monitor.

He never drew their attention as he moved closer to see who the person was. His movement was halted though as the images on the monitor became deformed and unrecognizable. There was a small trace of audio that he could only just make out through the static. The harder he listened, the clearer the audio became. Soon the haunting audio revealed itself along with a clear visual. It was the fateful broadcast that Nicole had sent him, thanking him for pushing her to go on the Ishimura.

It endlessly looped the section where she said that he made her stick with it. Soon Isaac's head began to pound so deafeningly that he thought that his head was going to burst. The transmition began to transform as the environment distorted to that hellish abyss that he remembered all too well. Blood from numerous victims covered the wall, provided a sort of new coat of paint for the ship. "You made me die, Isaac." She blamed him for everything. If he hadn't let her go, she would still be here. "Nicole…" he didn't know what to do.

The stress of it all took its toll and he fell to his knees, begging for the release of death. "I never wanted you to leave. I'm so sorry." He surrendered himself to whatever fate had in store for him. He watched as the chair swivel around to reveal her lifeless body. Isaac had always imagined what her body must have looked like after she had taken her own life and left it for the necromorphs to do with as they please. It was true that he never did find out what actually happened. Why didn't he? If he really did love her, why didn't he do all he could to find her and give her a proper burial.

The body's flesh fell of the bone as it stood up from the chair, taking deliberate steps to where Isaac was. He surrendered himself to whatever it wanted to do to him. It would be a fitting punishment for his crime no matter what it was. Oddly, a distant noise that seemed to be coming from the outside brought this nightmare to an abrupt end. The gray images began to blur into the world of reality and then shatter like a thin sheet of glass. Isaac could feel himself falling into the pit of oblivion deeper and deeper until he finally opened his eyes.

He groaned slightly as he could feel his brain pounding against his skull. Sitting up, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and looked around for the potential source of the noise. He could feel the sweat dripping from his forehead onto the crumpled bed sheets that wrapped around his legs. Checking the clock, he noticed that he had only been asleep for a few hours. Searching the room, he saw that Ellie wasn't there again. It's strange because Ellie's shift usual ended around this time so she should have been back by now.

Pulling the covers back, Isaac decided to do some investigating. Looking at Ellie's side of the apartment, he saw evidence that she had gone to sleep but woke up and went somewhere else. There were only so many place that she could have gone during this time of night, especially if she didn't put on some shoes. He walked over to the door and opened it to the nearby hallway.

This area was private to just the two of them, so it wasn't a bother no matter what time they came out. Isaac looked both directions, not seeing her anywhere, and decided to look around a bit more. The windows provided a view to the outside where a large planet in the distant allowed for the light to illuminate the hallway. Just a few steps from the apartment, he found Ellie. She was just standing there, looking out at the stars, trying to find some sort of solace from something.

A small creek in the floor alerted her and she turned to the source. "Oh Isaac, you're awake." He walked over to her and took the position next to her, admiring the view as well and enjoying the comfort of her warm body next to him. "I was actually worried that I was keeping you awake because I haven't seen you in the room." Ellie shook her head. "It's not your fault. It's just something stupid that I just can't get over, no matter how much I try." The pair stood silent watching the lights in the sky move a whisper of an inch across the night sky.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He could see her face illuminated from the lights outside. "I don't think I could even if I wanted to." Ellie shrugged her shoulders. "It could probably help us both sleep," she explained. "Is that why I haven't seen you when I wake up?" She nodded her head. "My nightmares wake me up almost as soon as I go to bed. She turned her attention to Isaac. "I come out here to think about what they could possibly mean." She softly sighed to herself, unsure of what to do.

Maybe Ellie was right. If he didn't say anything, he would drive himself crazy just thinking about what he could do to stop them. "It's the woman that I told you I couldn't save when I was launching the ship. Nicole." Ellie watched as his face began to show the emotional pain that he was experiencing. "It was because of her message that I went to the Ishimura. I thought that I could save her somehow."

"Isaac, how could you have possibly known the danger she was in? You're only human," she tried to figure out the problem with the situation. Isaac finally told her what really happened on the Ishimura a few weeks ago. She felt worried for him because he had gone back into the depths of hell once again and told her to stay behind, almost like he thought he could only do it alone. He balled his hands into a tight fist, trying to draw his anger somewhere else to keep from distracting him. "It's my fault because I'm the one that told her to go. I kept pushing her to further her career. The dementia that I had was feeding off of that guilt and even though it's gone, I still feel like I failed."

Ellie could see the glistening in his eyes even though no tears ever fell. He wouldn't let them. Like her, Isaac was good at hiding them and developed a harden shell on the outside. "It looks like we have something in common." Isaac was shocked when she said this. Did she really have some sort of regret too? "His name was Kaleb," she started. Isaac recalled more audio logs that he recently uncovered that mentioned her progress during the outbreak. He tried to be wary not to mention anything about it by the way the final log had ended.

"We were the last two left from our team and managed to get to a fuel storage warehouse, but Kaleb's leg couldn't take him any further. It was just cut up too badly. He…umm" she found her throat tightening slightly at the memory. "He knew that there was no way we were both going to make it out alive. We had been running from a group of them and were trying to get to the tram to buy us some time. In the end, he told me to just leave him and run. I couldn't do it. Kaleb was like a big brother to me and I didn't want to lose him. In the end, I ran away like a coward, leaving him there to die. Before the door behind me close, I could hear the faint sound of a line gun mine exploding so I knew he was gone. It's strange that you think you failed Nicole. I feel like I failed Kaleb. If I had just a bit more ammo, then maybe I could have saved him."

Isaac watched her face closely. Seeing how much this had affected her, he put a comforting hand gently on her back. Ellie jumped slightly at the unexpected source of heat that she felt, but soon relaxed. "You know Isaac, talking with you really did make me feel better." She smiled kindly at him. "I still don't think I feel better, Ellie." She shook her head. "Isaac, you did save me back there, even if I did come back to get you." She reached for his clenched hand on the windowsill with hers and placed it on top.

Isaac saw the gesture and opened the hand to let hers in. Her hand was quite tiny compared to his, but looking at them he could see that they reflected each other with the small scars and bruises that told their stories without words. At that moment, he could feel the emotions in his body being lifted away and disappear. That small gesture had in term relieved him of his pain, if only for a while. Isaac closed his hand around Ellie's and lightly caressed the back of her palm. She moved herself closer to him and placed her head on his chest, wanting to hear the strong heartbeat behind it. They both stayed like this for a while. The light began to vanish from the hallway, but all they could do was stay by each other and if only for tonight help the other finally sleep.

A/N: Hope you guys enjoy the story. I'm sorry but I'm just a huge fan of Isaac and Ellie lolXD


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